Blog - Page 26 of 100 - Sherri Woodard Coffey

Adiós, farewell, goodbye

Yep, we’re here again. Time to say adiós to anther year. Farewell, 2013, to all the good and the not-so-good. And you know it’s a new year when you start getting huge catalogs, like the left. Of course, this one REALLY got my attention. It’s funny, I don’t even shop at Pottery Barn.

I don’t make resolutions or choose a word for the coming year. But I’ve made my to-do lists for 2014, and as usual, they are long, long, long. They are broken down into categories: House (outside and inside), weaving, dyeing, etc. Having these lists would seem overwhelming, except that I have a history of crossing through 75% or more of the items.

One of the things that I want to continue and improve, is my systems, something started in the class with Lisa Call. I always had systems, just not in such an organized way. Now I have my dyeing, ikat, and finishing procedures written down and in a binder. I can note any improvements or changes for next time–and find them!

I didn’t have anything better to do (ha ha), so I played around with telephone cases on CafePress. I thought these looked pretty good. However if you go to the link, you can’t see them, so here’s a picture of the other iPhone cases that I played around with.

At left is a beer label from Flying Dog brewery. From the name of the brewery, you can see that this label is not made to be offensive. Ha ha! I think it’s banned in a couple of states, though. Love the label. The beer? Not so much. They’ve also got Snake Dog and Underdog. May have to try those and others that they brew. I’m not much of a drinker, so those tastings will wait a while.

2013 was actually pretty good to me. What about you? Do you make resolutions?

Pottery adventures

Like everyone, the last couple of weeks have been busy ones. My daughter and grandsons were here. (Have you noticed how much space children take up? Not all physical space, but all around) One of the things we did is go to Front Porch Pottery Studio. We made pieces that will be fired in a couple of weeks, after drying a bit.

Beck made the face on the left. Those eyes! And I love the tongue! Zane’s sword is on the right. (They just recently saw the latest Hobbit movie.) Mine was a boring tray, but I like it anyway. At the suggestion of Teresa, my daughter made a cylindrical container that should turn out really well.

Working with clay is so soothing somehow. I think I’m going to have to do this again, maybe even try the wheel. That probably won’t be so soothing! I would also like to take a printing class. Oh, the possibilities!

A busy time…the list yesterday was a mile long, but I completed all but one item–cleaning the studio. Gee, what’s up with that? But I did weave! The warp has been adjusted so that it fits the ikat sections. One of the things that I am concentrating on with this piece is maintaining the selvedges better. Draw-in is always a consideration when doing the needle weaving during finishing. I have heard that keeping the first couple of inches “looser,” so that those warp ends have space will help. Working on it!

My house is full with two little boys. Why does it seem even fuller when children are involved? We all know the answer to that! I am grateful to have them here. They have already made two trips to Whataburger, and they’ve only been here since Friday! No Whataburgers available in North Carolina.

Hope everyone has speedy shuttles, unbroken threads, and a masterpiece on the loom. I’m sure every state has its own unique Christmas season, but some typical Texas pics can be found here.

Ready

Close-up of my ties

Two of the ikat sections are untied, which really only equals to one of three parts of my design. There are several steps to this process:

Using a seam ripper to cut the knot
Unwrapping
Soaking in water to “re-fluff” the yarn, which has been compressed by the tape.
Either balling the yarn, or if the section is fairly small, winding it directly on a shuttle

I tie the ikat tape in a double knot, being very afraid it will come loose and I will have bleeding dye. However, I know that ikat tying experts use a bow. I’m thinking that my confidence might be enough now to practice bows for the next sections I tie. Or maybe I will tie the double knot with a bow. That way I can test how the bows hold up to the dye process. Or maybe not use the bow–I just reviewed this video of ikat tying. Will search for others another time.<>

Good and bad, bad and good

I went out to what I euphemistically call my dye studio the other day and saw a big mess. Two long shelves that held several boxes of yarn/weaving stuff had fallen to the floor. This was stuff that I didn’t want to get rid of, but also did not want it taking room up in the house. Way back from the days when I used to sew, there is a box of wool fabrics that I though I would cut up and over dye to have harmonious colors together. Like that was going to happen! There was also a box of yarns, which I opened, beautiful yarns ready to be dyed. I have a very, very dim remembrance of having those yarns spun at some time in the distant past. These yarns look exactly like what I’ve had in my head that I want to weave with now. I took a couple of them inside the house to find out how many yarns per pound they had. And I would have done that, except that my McMorran yarn balance has disappeared. Not wanting to waste anymore time looking for it, I balled up the yarn and then skeined it again, counting as I went along. Turns out that the yarn has about 825 ypp. Each skein weighs in at about 1/2 pound. Since I also really don’t like the warp I’m using, I will wait to use them after re-warping the loom with linen.

Now, what about the rest of that mess out there? A different kind of shelving is definitely a must. Really don’t want something else that will pull our of the wall.

Gratitude

After doing all of the ikat tying, you get to untie all those resists. Here’s 1/2 of one section only partially untied. It’s kind of a mindless activity, ideal for keeping one’s hands busy while watching a movie or mindless TV. The dyeing on this is actually a mistake, so Plan B is now in force. At one point I had it in my head exactly how I was going to dye each of the sections so that the background (in this case, the orange part) would be gradate from light orange to a more intense orange. Totally forgot when I went out and threw dye in the pot, do the plan has been revamped.

There are still spots of ice here and there, but it should all be gone soon, with temps reaching 60s and 70s this week, only to drop down again by the weekend. I am really glad I filled the dyepots yesterday, because today, the water was frozen in the hose.

And speaking of weather–I realized that my mindset had to change, or I was going to be miserable in winter and summer. The weather is here to stay, and I have to readjust to the conditions I live in. Probably because I am older, these extremes of temperatures bother me more, and I have always been sensitive to many days without sunshine. Not sensitive enough to warrant one of those special lamps, but … So, I went out and dyed when it was 35, and felt better for doing it! In addition, I am going to work on my thinking. I have a bitty journal that I am writing down five things that I am grateful for each day. Many days recently I have been grateful for the warm fire in the wood stove. Or that I am capable of taking a pickax and breaking up the ice and make a path to the woodpile. Knowing that I am going to have to make my grateful list makes me think about this during the day. And truly, we all have things to be grateful for. Why let the weather affect that?

Staying focused

You may not have heard, but we’ve had a little weather here in my part of the world. This white stuff looks like snow, but it fell as ice and stayed slippery. Roads have been blocked for a couple of days.

Today it was finally above freezing for the first time in several days. With sunshine! And tonight I don’t have to leave the water dribbling to prevent freezing. I might, just maybe, leave the house tomorrow. That is, if I can get down my driveway without sliding into the well house. And now there’s falling ice. Take a look at this video. At about 0:50 you can see the good part.

For a couple of weeks I have been having trouble staying focused. Part of that may be because I’m not actually weaving. So, I decided to try to trick myself by taking before and after pictures and using a timer. I’ve got a feeling this little trick isn’t going to work for too many times, though, so another trick or two will need to be tried. The pic on the left was my starting point. After 1.5 hours, the pic on the right shows where I ended up. Amazingly ridiculous how little can be done in that period of time. As I’ve said many times, with ikat, all the work goes into the front end. Otherwise, with regular tapestry, the work is during the weaving.

And here’s my usual mess. Actually I start out putting all the bits in the trash, but they inevitably end up like this.

Do you have any tricks to stay focused? I’d love to hear them. Maybe we could compile a list. If #1 doesn’t work, move on to #2, etc.

Piano Pavilion

On a cold, rainy day last week, I went to a members’ tour of the new Piano Pavilion at the Kimbell Art Museum. I usually talk myself out of these ventures when the actual time arrives, but not this time. The tour was wonderful and so interesting! And the building is beautiful! This visit was good for the soul.

As I was seeing all of the attributes of the building, I was thinking about how much planning and foresight has to go into a design. It’s not just a beautiful building, but it has many innovations. The ceiling inside much of the lobby is glass. Well, when I see glass, I immediately think of all our hail storms. This glass is of a very heavy-duty type, and it also has levers on top that can close if needed. The levers are normally in position to bring in as much northern light as possible. This is also a green building, with columns to harvest the rainwater. In the front galleries, the floor is wood, just as in the Kahn building, but they are placed so there is a bit of space between each board, which allows heat to radiate up from below. Other “green” features are thermal wells and using half the electricity of the Kahn building.

I’ve never paid much attention to the walls in a museum before, but after listening to an interview with Renzo Piano, and another interview with an art critic, the concrete walls were one of my must-sees. The color is a soft, blue/gray, and they are as smooth as silk, which is in fact, what they call this type of concrete. The art critic was talking about how the art pops against these walls, mentioning specially a terracotta bust. Mr. Piano told about how he had seen this concrete in Venice, found out how to make it, and brought it not only the “recipe,” but also the workers from Venice to Texas to make this wondrous stuff.

View from the Asian section to the Will Rogers Memorial.

One of the statues in the Asian wing. Love the shadows behind the statue!

Another feature is the Asian section–It’s all underground! Many of the scrolls can’t handle the bright lights so it’s all kind of dim, with strategic lighting. The atmosphere is mysterious and inviting.

The hill above the Asian wing, looking toward the Will Rogers Memorial.

There is also a new auditorium. An acoustics expert advised to have a balcony, so there is one. These panels are on both sides to also aid in acoustics.

No picture of this, but there are also great studios to have classes, with running water and everything.

Here are some links to pictures that are better than mine:

In the real world here in ikat land

Here’s my latest configuration for the ikat board. So far, so good. This is part B of the section done previously. I didn’t think this would work because of how the right top board sticks out from the edge of the table, but since it’s holding so far, this could also be the answer for the varying widths of designs.

Last thoughts

I’m still thinking about all the planning and the thinking ahead that an architect has to do in order to build a new building. Yes, we all have to think through a project, and often we learn the hard way that we didn’t think enough, but our projects are not nearly so grand. I am having to remind myself, yet again, to document, document, document. That will help having to learn all over again.

What’s your planning process like? Or do you go forth by the seat of your pants?

A problem

Yes, this picture probably looks a bit familiar, but I’m using it to ask for help. This is the right side of my board and ikat table. The left side is clamped to the edge of the table with no problems. The right side in this picture can’t be clamped because the distance from the edge of the table to the peg board is too great. All of the small boards you see here are braced against the peg board and another board on the right to hold it in place. It’s not working so well. The only remedy I can come up with is to drill holes in the table and the peg board and then use a screw/wing nut to hold everything in place. But I hate to drill a hole in the table. Any ideas? Anyone?

It’s winter!

Icy trees

Let me say right off, I’m not a big fan of winter. I may have mentioned that before. For sure! Winter did arrive, even here in Texas, although it did not live up to the predictions of the weather folks. The streets were fine here and I could walk out to get my paper without falling. Of course, I had to duck the tree branches hanging down from their load of ice. Even though I prefer to not have winter, the ice on the trees is pretty, as is snow. But for us here in Texas, snow and ice bring huge problems because we just don’t deal with it as often as, say the northeast.

New tool

Measuring ikat

I usually look upon these winter storms as a time to hunker down and hibernate, making art. I get the wood burning stove going in my studio and either weave or work on the ikat tying. Which brings me to that subject–ikat tying. I had a small disaster while measuring the yarns. The whole shebang just disconnected itself from the very carefully placed boards, c-clamps, and whatever else was holding it in place. I have done a search for other forms of clamps, and in fact, went to town to get one kind. I’ve learned some of the vocabulary necessary to discuss clamps. What I needed was one that had a long reach throat. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t work and will be returned tomorrow. The only other thing I can think of to do is to drill holes and use bolts to hold things in place. But I’m going to think about that for a while.

Fall colors

This is what I’m working on right now. This is to be fall grasses, and yes I know that fall grasses (above) are not this bright, but it’s representational. You can see the top part of the cartoon sticking out above the yarns. I’ll move that down after finishing this section. Notice how on the right the loops have been taken off their pegs and tied with a string to outside pegs. That’s because the tying will go to the edge and there’s no other way to totally tie that area.

Happy Thanksgiving! May we all be grateful for what we have, our families and friends, and what we are. So, I will be grateful for winter. I hear that the cold is good for reducing the population of West Nile bearing mosquitos.